1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to skin disinfecting formulations for providing antimicrobial effectiveness to the skin without irritation or dryness. The skin disinfecting formulations comprising alcohol are particularly useful in the healthcare profession.
2. Description of Related Art
Handwashing by healthcare professionals is an essential component of infection control activities. Healthcare professionals attending to patient care wash their hands to control the spread of infection from patient to patient and surgical procedures are routinely proceeded by surgical hand scrubbing and patient pre-operative skin prepping.
Hand washing procedures are performed in several ways. Several procedures include an ordinary antimicrobial bar soap, a skin disinfecting or preoperative prepping agent or robbing alcohol. The use of these procedures repeatedly is hard and rough on hands.
Commercially available scrubs include detergents and an antimicrobial agent or a preservative. Such antimicrobial or preservative agents include iodine formulations, iodophors, phenolic compounds such as parachlorometaxylenol and hexachlorophene and bis-biguandies such as chlorhexidine gluconate.
Although alcohol in general is recognized for its very effective disinfecting properties, it is not used directly with skin or in scrub formulations because it is a defatting agent. When alcohol is applied to the human skin, it makes it very dry, often developing chapped and cracked skin. Furthermore, it is difficult to formulate a detergent solution with alcohol that will foam like ordinary soaps and detergents when used with water.
However, due to the disinfecting properties of alcohol, it is desirable to produce a skin disinfecting formulation with alcohol which is mild and gentle to the skin, foams and is effective against microorganisms.